ATI R520 to debut 'early September'

Higher-end parts due October, report claims

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ATI will launch its first R520-based graphics chip early next month if a report on Anandtech is to be believed.

Citing ATI roadmaps, the report claims the single-slot boards based on the R520 XL chip will be launched early September 2005.

A month later, ATI will announce dual-slot boards based on the R520 XT chip. A version of the part incorporating CrossFire, ATI's multi-card co-operative rendering technology, will arrive midway through October, the website suggests.

The roadmaps hint at an R520 Pro, but there's no clear indication of its availability, apparently.

The RV515 chip - which first emerged last April, along with the RV530 - will ship as an XL part toward the end of September. Some 30 days later, ATI will launch the RV530, which supports CrossFire.

ATI's most recent submission to the PCI-SIG, the organisation overseeing the PCI Express standard, listed RV515 XT and RV530 XT parts, so there appears some confusion over how ATI will brand its releases. Similarly, the PCI-SIG product list mentions a R520 GL. Most likely, ATI is leaving the decision to the last possible minute, the better to gain market advantage by countering what Nvidia is offering at the time. However they're named, expect the chips to be made available at a number of price-points.

The RV515 will be clocked around 450MHz, with memory at an effective 800MHz, Anandtech claims. The chip supports a dual-channel GDDR 2 bus with up to 256MB of video memory attached. The core has four pipelines, which are likely to be unified pixel/vertex units.

The 12-pipeline RV530 core is clocked at 600MHz, with its dual-channel GDDR 3 memory clocked to an effective 1.4GHz. The Pro part will support up to 256MB, the XT version 512MB, the report suggests. ®